The Dog

On Friday afternoon, I am driving home from grocery shopping, and in the little cul- de-sac next to mine, I notice an obviously lost dog, running aimlessly. I make eye contact and sympathetic noises through the closed window of the car, and I notice in the side mirror that the dog is chasing my car. I come around the corner and pull up in front of my house, and the dog catches up. I open the door to get the groceries out, and the dog jumps into my car and begins lapping my face! I don't know this dog from a hole in the wall, but she pushes past me and as I open the door to tell Sam that she followed me home, she gets in the house ahead of me and introduces herself!

We check for tags, and she has a tag that says she has a chip embedded, so we call that number, but they tell us that, unfortunately, the owner has not registered their name or phone number. She is also wearing a Torrrance dog tag, so she's local. The chip people give me another number to call, LA County something or other. We call there, and a recorded message tells us they're only open Monday through Thursday, and gives us another number to call, which is busy all evening.

So. We seem to have a dog, at least for the weekend. We give her water, and a hotdog, and she finally calms down and makes herself at home. After dinner, I buy 2 cans of dog food. She is a good size, a little smaller than a German Shepherd, maybe about the size of a Border collie, white with black spots, short hair, with a curled up tail and pointed ears. And she's very intelligent and well-trained. I tell her to sit, and she sits. Hmmm, give me your paw? Yup. The other paw? Yup, that too. When we eat, we tell her to sit, and she averts her eyes and minds her manners.

Saturday morning I put Found Dog signs up all around the neighborhood and look for lost dog signs, but no call.

Sam likes her a lot. She's very mellow and quiet. The only time she has barked is when a van came at 2 am to pick up the neighbor for dialysis. Perfect watchdog behavior.

Probably on Monday, we will call the county and they'll have the number of whoever had the chip embedded, and we'll give her back. But it's been really nice experiencing a dog. So far, we're just calling her "pup," but if she stays much longer, she's going to get a name. And if we don't find the people, we will keep her. The only bad thing would be if we kept her for a month or two and then her owner turned up.